Dr. David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, will present “A Brief History of Gambling” at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 15, in the Missouri/Ozark Room of the Havener Center on the University of Missouri-Rolla campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the UMR history and political science department.

Schwartz is the author of two books on gambling in America: “Suburban Xanadu: The Casino Resort on the Las Vegas Strip and Beyond” (2003) and Cutting the Wire: Gambling Prohibition and the Internet” (2005). He is completing a third book, “Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling,” which will be the subject of his talk at UMR.

Schwartz appears frequently on television news programs, such as CNN’s “Moneyline,” Court TV’s “Hollywood at Large,” the Travel Channel’s “Secrets of the Palms” and “Vegas Whales Tales,” and the History Channel’s “History of Poker,” “Breaking Vegas” and “Modern Marvels.”

While at UMR, Schwartz will also guest-lecture in Dr. Larry Gragg’s History 176 class, America Since 1877. The class has been reading Schwartz’s “Suburban Xanadu,” says Gragg, Curators’ Teaching Professor of history and chair of the history and political science department.